


What Isn't But Should Be

by jensenisafallenangel



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Genie/Djinn, M/M, Mark of Cain, Pining, Sam Knows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-04
Updated: 2015-03-04
Packaged: 2018-03-16 08:43:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3481757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jensenisafallenangel/pseuds/jensenisafallenangel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel is transported to a djinn's alternate world where he is together with Dean. Sam convinces him to leave that world and come home but sees Cas's pining while Dean continues to go home with random women.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Isn't But Should Be

**Author's Note:**

> I know there is a Tumblr post about this so if you see it, let me know so I can link it and give credit for the awesome idea.

“Take the dream root and get him back!” Dean ordered. 

He ran off to another part of the warehouse to find the djinn and kill it. Sam listened to his retreating footsteps. He instinctively wanted to follow and help his brother since they were only pretty sure this one was working alone but there was a bigger problem at hand. 

The djinn had cursed Castiel and it had unfortunately worked since he wasn’t up to full angel power, not with his borrowed grace. It was one of the few hunts he had been on recently with Sam and Dean. He refused to leave the Winchesters until they found a cure for the Mark of Cain but they couldn’t stop hunting while they searched for how to save Dean.

Sam ran over to where Cas sat slumped over in a chair and ripped one of his hairs out before dropping it into the African dream root tea. He chugged the nasty stuff in one go and was asleep before he collapsed on the dusty warehouse floor. 

 

Sam woke up on a decently comfy couch. It took him a split second to remember that he was in whatever world the djinn had spun for Castiel. Sam wasn’t sure but he hoped that meant he would be close. He hadn’t dealt with the African dream root combined with djinn magic before. Hopefully, he found Cas soon. The sooner he found him, the sooner they could go back to their own world. 

He sat up and looked around. It seemed that he was in a small house, specifically the cozy living room. The couch was against a wall facing a TV with a coffee table between them. There were sliding doors that let in the sun on his left. He stood and saw they led to a patio. Far off on his right was the front door with a little entrance area before a dining area. It had a small table with four chairs around it. There was a kitchen to the right of the front door. Immediately to the right of the couch was an open archway. Sam guessed it went to any bedrooms and bathrooms. 

Sam noticed the two pictures above the TV. He got up to get a closer look at them. There was a framed one of him and Dean at Bobby’s. Sam smiled sadly, remembering their surrogate father and wondered where he was in this world. If he was even alive. The other picture was of Dean and Castiel. Sam blinked several times, looked around the room and then looked back at the picture. It was quite a shock. 

His brother and Cas were kissing in the picture. Granted, it was a cute picture, but Sam needed to find Cas right now. This was a weird world. One where apparently Dean didn’t deny the feelings that Sam only guessed at for so long back home. 

There were soft footsteps behind him and Sam whipped around. Castiel was standing in a pair of sweatpants and a Metallica shirt. His hair was standing in every direction. It was definitely not a sight Sam was used to seeing. 

“Sam,” Cas said. “Do you want some coffee?” 

“I… sure.”

Sam followed Cas into the kitchen and sat at the table while Cas made coffee. Sam didn’t even know that Cas knew how to make coffee. It was all very unsettling. 

Dean shuffled in when the coffee was done and Cas was pouring it into three mugs. Dean immediately walked up behind Cas and wrapped his arms around his waist. Cas turned his head enough to kiss him. Sam felt his jaw drop. The domestic and sweet side of Dean that Sam had doubted existed just made an appearance and it was hard to take in. 

He looked back and forth between the two of them, astounded, when they sat down. Cas pushed a mug over to Sam who ignored it. 

“What’s wrong, Sam? You look like you saw a ghost but I know you haven’t. We haven’t had a case in a long time. It’s been nice,” Dean said. Okay, so they still hunted. One thing was normal in this world. 

Sam snapped his jaw shut before sipping some coffee. He still didn’t trust himself to say anything. 

“I’m glad you came, man. I know Sarah…”

“Sarah?” Sam asked, furrowing his eyebrows. He couldn’t mean… 

“Sarah your girlfriend?” Dean said, looking at Sam like he grew another head. 

In this world, Sarah Blake was fine. She was safe and she was apparently Sam’s girlfriend. Sam stared into his coffee, trying to process. 

“Right,” he managed.

“I like when she goes out of town, then you come hang with us,” Dean said. He turned to smile at Cas and he grabbed his knee under the table. Cas smiled back.

“Right,” Sam repeated, still getting used to his brother and Cas. Cas, of all people. Well, not people technically…

“Okay, I’m going to take a shower,” Dean said, standing up. He bent and whispered something in Cas’s ear that made him blush furiously. Dean put his half-empty mug on the counter and walked away laughing. 

“Cas…”

“I know, Sam,” Cas said, sounding sad. 

“You know what?” Sam asked cautiously. 

“I know this isn’t real. This isn’t our world.”

“Oh. Well, that makes this easier. You gotta come back with me. To where we belong,” Sam explained. 

“We’re all so happy here, Sam. Why can’t we stay?” Cas asked. Sam looked at him and saw his eyes filled with pleading sadness. 

“Because right now, Dean is fighting a djinn that hopefully doesn’t kill us.”

Cas let out a sigh. 

“I know this world is nice but it isn’t ours,” Sam persuaded. 

“I woke up in this world yesterday morning. I woke up with Dean and it felt so right but when Dean woke up… I knew it wasn’t my Dean. Something was wrong but he kissed me and it felt right anyways.”

“Cas,” Sam said, “why don’t we go back? You can tell Dean how you feel.”

Cas looked down and seemed to consider Sam’s idea. Sam didn’t question the fact that Cas had called his brother “his.” It had probably been a long time since Cas had considered him that. Again, Sam had only guessed at the feelings Cas and Dean had towards each other. Apparently, he was partially right. Sam couldn’t imagine waking up happy but knowing it wasn’t real, knowing that the actual world was shot to hell. 

“I don’t think he feels the same in our world, Sam,” Cas said, a sad smile barely there. 

“We can find out.”

“You know, the you from this world was here last night. I knew you were different when I walked out today,” Cas said, changing the subject. “You are content with Sarah. There was no apocalypse. You listened to Dean and I when we said not to trust Ruby. The three of us go hunting sometimes but we’re safe.”

Sam let that sink in. A world where Lucifer never left hell? Definitely better. But Sam wouldn’t be who he was without everything he went through. Neither would Cas or Dean. Even if he could be happy with Sarah and his brother could be happy with Cas with all of them hunting sometimes, it couldn’t be. They had to go home. 

“Bobby is alive, Sam. There was no Lucifer so no heavenly civil war. Purgatory was never opened so no Leviathan. Dean and I never went to Purgatory,” Cas said, begging Sam to understand. 

“I get this world is better, I do. But we have to go. It’s not right.”

Cas closed his eyes to think. Sam tightened his lips in pity. He was tempted to stay if all that was true but he couldn’t. He could only imagine how much harder this must be for Cas. 

“Dean still has the Mark. If we stay here, he’ll go darkside.”

Cas opened eyes. That was the reason he needed to go back. If he truly cared about Dean, how could he stay here while he fought the Mark alone?

“Can I say goodbye?” Cas gave in. Sam nodded. He couldn’t deny his friend that. 

Cas walked down the hallway and surprised Dean in the shower with a kiss. Sam could hear him say he would join him in a minute. Cas walked back out with his shirt a little wet from leaning a little into the shower. There was a wet handprint on his shoulder from Dean. 

“What do I have to do?” Cas asked, not meeting Sam’s eyes. 

“Tell yourself it isn’t real. You have to wake up.”

Cas closed his eyes and focused on the real Dean he knew. He focused on all of the mistakes they had made and everything they had been through. Everything that made their world their own from the moment he pulled Dean out of hell. 

 

He woke up when he heard Dean calling his name. He was back in the warehouse, in his tie and trench coat like usual. 

“You all right?” Dean asked. 

“I’m fine,” Cas lied. Physically, he supposed he was. 

Dean woke Sam up. He sat up and shared a look with Cas. There was too much pity in his eyes so Castiel looked away. 

“What’d I miss?” Dean asked, looking between the two of them. Sam and Cas didn’t answer him.

The car ride was quiet. Dean drove and kept looking at Sam next to him and Cas behind him in the middle of the backseat. 

“Okay, seriously. What happened in the djinn’s Magic Kingdom?” Dean asked. 

“Nothing,” Sam said, trying to get Dean to drop it. At least for now. Cas needed time to think things over before talking to Dean about the other world. 

“Fine,” Dean shrugged. 

He turned up whatever cassette he had and sang along softly to himself. Cas smiled to himself. No matter what world he found Dean in, his love of music never changed. 

 

The trio got back to the bunker and Sam suggested they all turn in. Dean said he wanted to drink and celebrate but Cas also wanted to go to sleep. Dean gave him an odd look about the fact that was sleeping but shrugged it off. 

Cas went into his room and reclined on his bed. He hadn’t planned on sleeping but he needed to be alone to think. He closed his eyes and thought of the other Dean. He was still tough yet sweet, rough yet gentle. There were so many similarities and Cas got to see what it would be like if his Dean here returned his feelings. Feelings that were made clear by the djinn’s world. 

He was in love with Dean. 

He had to have been for a long time but never stopped to think about it. All the times he rebelled against heaven to keep Dean save, running from the Leviathan in Purgatory to protect him, fighting Naomi’s mind control so he didn’t kill Dean, it was all because he loved Dean. It was the only explanation that made sense. 

But how did Dean feel?

Cas couldn’t be sure. Dean had brought him back when he was Emmanuel, fought to find and save him in Purgatory, and had trusted him with the First Blade. But that could be a different kind of love. It was possible that Dean only considered him a brother. 

Cas tried to think about anything else but failed. He ended up drifting asleep, the failing grace causing him to actually become tired. 

 

The next night, Dean suggested they all go to a bar.

“Come on, we didn’t get to celebrate a job well done yesterday!” he insisted. 

Sam gave him a skeptical look. Cas kept his face blank. 

“I get you’re worried about the Mark. But maybe getting back to my usual self will help. The job was mostly well done. We’re all okay and the monster’s gone. Let’s go,” Dean continued. 

Sam gave in so Cas did as well. 

Cas knew what to expect but it didn’t hurt any less. When they got to the bar, Dean had immediately started flirting with their waitress. Cas kept his straight face when Dean got up and went up to the bar to flirt with some of the women there after a few drinks. 

“Cas, why don’t you say anything?” 

“He clearly is content picking up random women,” Cas stated matter-of-factly. 

“He might be doing it since he has nothing else. Why don’t you give him a better option?” Sam said rationally. Cas sighed. 

Dean walked back over to their table and tossed Sam the Impala’s keys. He had a blonde woman on his arm and a huge grin.

“Don’t wait up,” he winked. Cas missed that since he didn’t look up from his untouched beer. 

Sam rolled his eyes. Once Dean was out of the bar, Cas asked if they could leave. Sam gladly agreed. 

That same thing happened the next two nights. On the fourth night, Cas decided not to go. It was getting too exhausting to see Dean keep going home with a string of women. Sam also opted to stay in. 

“Seriously? You guys suck,” Dean complained. He looked between Sam and Cas and saw they weren’t giving in. He shrugged and left anyways. 

“You know, the Mark could be affecting him,” Sam tried, attempting to make Cas feel better. It didn’t work. 

Cas didn’t say anything and just went to his room. He ran a finger over his lips, trying to remember the last kiss he shared with the Dean from the djinn’s world. He couldn’t anymore. All he wanted was to kiss the Dean he had here but he couldn’t. 

When Dean came back the next morning, Sam had had enough. Over breakfast while Cas was still in his room, Sam went off. 

“You’re such an idiot, you know that?” Sam said. 

“Morning to you, too,” Dean said, sipping his coffee. 

“Do you even realize what you’re missing?” Sam snapped. 

“What the hell are you talking about?” Dean asked. 

“Just… please, go talk to Cas. Ask him about the djinn world.”

“Why? What happened there?” Dean wanted to know. Maybe it would explain why his brother and friend had been acting so weird. 

“Go,” Sam demanded. He couldn’t take Cas’s sad, longing looks at Dean and his brother’s obliviousness anymore. 

 

Dean knocked on Cas’s door. 

“Cas?” he called gently. 

“Come in,” he heard. 

Dean walked in and found Cas sitting upright in his bed with a book in his usual clothes but his tie and trench coat thrown on a chair. Dean sat on the edge of the bed and Cas sat his book down.

“What is it, Dean?” Cas asked.

“Sam said I should talk to you? He said I was an idiot and something about the djinn world…”

“Sam shouldn’t have said anything,” Cas said, angry Sam had brought it up. He just needed time. 

“Oh. Should I go…?” Dean asked. 

He sounded unsure, like he didn’t know what to do. Cas shook his head. He might as well talk to Dean about what was bothering him.

“In the djinn world, everything was different,” Cas began. “There was no apocalypse, Bobby was alive, the three of us hunted with him finding us the cases.” 

Dean smiled, picturing that ideal world. 

“Sam was happy, he was with Sarah Blake. I believe you knew her from a past case?”

Dean nodded. He didn’t want to remember how he had failed her and Crowley killed her. 

“There was one big difference, though,” Cas continued, looking at his hands in his lap. 

“What? Were you married to a model?” Dean joked. Cas watched Dean’s eyes light up at his joke. Those green eyes that Cas could look at forever, could get lost in…

“Cas?” Dean said, his eyes turning to a look of worry. 

“Wh…No. No models.”

“Then what?”

“This is going to sound ridiculous but… we were together, Dean,” Cas explained, daring to watch Dean’s reaction. 

He didn’t look that shocked. Or repulsed. Cas took it as a good sign. 

“Oh,” Dean said. He slowly nodded as he thought about it. 

“Oh?”

“It kind of makes sense right? Like you’ve said before, we’ve been through much together.”

Dean smiled and Cas blinked, hardly believing this was his reaction. He was expecting Dean to just laugh it off. Maybe he was stuck in another dream world?

“Cas, is that why you’ve been acting kind of…”

“Distant?”

“Sure, you could say that.”

“Would you say something else?” Cas accused.

“Sulking?” Dean tried. Cas glared. 

“I mean,” Dean continued, “I don’t know if you’re getting upset about me going home with these women Cas but that was a fake world where we were together.”

“I know that, Dean. Believe me, I do,” Cas replied. He didn’t know that Dean shoving that back in his face would hurt so much. 

“Then what’s the big deal?” Dean said, his voice a little louder. 

“The big deal is that I love you,” Cas declared, his voice also louder. “In this world, in any world.”

He snapped his mouth shut and set in a tight line. It wasn’t how he would have liked to say it but now it was out there. 

“You…what?” Dean said, stunned. Cas looked down again.

“Dean, I’m sorry. I just…”

“I… look, Cas… I have to, uh, go,” Dean stammered. He quickly left Cas’s room.

Cas shut his eyes tightly. That was definitely not the reaction he wanted but he wasn’t entirely surprised. His fear that Dean didn’t return his feelings was true. 

He could hear arguing in the kitchen from Sam and Dean. Castiel had enough grace in him to be able to hear Sam trying to talk about what had happened and Dean shutting him down. 

Once both of their doors had slammed shut, Cas got off his bed. He put his striped tie and coat back on and walked out of the bunker. He started his unreliable gold car and drove off. 

 

The following two days had plenty of praying from Sam for him to come home and radio silence from Dean. Castiel tried to accept that they could still be friends even with his declaration of love out there. The two of them had still protected each other countless times before so it should still be the case now. 

Cas knew it wasn’t that easy.

Finally, as Cas lay in bed thinking, there was a prayer from Dean. 

“Cas, buddy? I don’t know if this works with the fading grace and everything but… We need you here. I need to talk to you. Just… come home, okay?”

Castiel was aware of Dean’s distaste of praying and he knew they needed to talk. Nothing would get resolved if Cas didn’t return to the bunker. Dean was right to call it home, it felt more like home than anywhere else had in a long time. He got in his car and drove back. As he parked, he saw Sam drive away in the Impala, kind enough to get them space. 

“Dean?” Cas called when he walked into the bunker’s map room. He didn’t know what Dean was going to say and he was nervous.

“Hey,” Dean called back, walking out from the kitchen. Cas walked down the stairs. 

“Should we…sit?” Cas suggested. Dean nodded and they sat at the table with the large map. 

“Cas, I’m glad you came back. I… Sam made it very clear to me that I did not react very well to you…what you told me,” Dean said. 

Cas patiently waited for Dean to finish what he had to say. 

“While you were gone, I did a lot of thinking. I think I freaked when you said what you said because… well, no one’s ever said that to me. Not in that way. I didn’t really see it coming. But…I think I freaked for another reason.”

“What’s that?” Cas asked, holding Dean’s gaze.

“I think I freaked mostly because I love you too,” Dean admitted. 

Cas tilted his head. He wasn’t sure he was hearing this correctly.

“I know,” Dean said, a little laugh escaping his throat as he ran his hand through his hair nervously. “It’s crazy but I am. I never put a name to how I felt until you said something, Cas.”

Cas stood up and walked around, facing away from Dean. It was hard to believe Dean loved him when he had abandoned all hope for the past two days. He shut his eyes tightly, daring to hope. 

“Dean,” Cas said and turned around, eyes wide open. Dean was standing right in front of him.

“Hi Cas,” Dean said softly. Cas took a moment to adjust to Dean’s closeness. 

“Are you sure?” Cas asked. If he woke up now and this was all a lie…

“That I love you? Yes,” Dean said with a small smile. “But I don’t get why you love me. Maybe that’s also why I left. I didn’t think you could ever love me back, I’m a walking disaster. I figured maybe you just loved me from the other world and were confused…”

Dean didn’t get to finish because Cas’s lips were on his. Dean kissed back passionately. The kiss wasn’t technically perfect, it was a little sloppy, but it felt perfect. It felt like a huge sigh of relief with an air of “finally.” Dean had one hand gripping the lapel of Cas’s trench coat and the other on the back of his angel’s neck. Cas had both hands cupping Dean’s cheeks. 

Cas broke the kiss first, breathing hard. 

“You are not a walking disaster, Dean. I will tell you that every day until you believe me because I’ve seen the good you have done and that far outweighs the bad that drags you down,” Cas said, his hands still on Dean’s face. 

“The Mark…”

“You have the brightest soul I have ever seen and if anyone can overcome the Mark, you can. Dean, you are selfless and that is one of many reasons why I love you. Mark or no Mark.”

Dean kissed Cas again, already getting better at it and more familiar with his mouth. 

“Any world I could go to, I would find you. But I think I’d like to stay in this one with you,” Cas said.

“Yeah, I’m not letting you go anywhere,” Dean grinned.


End file.
